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Rena Sherbill: As always, we’ve been talking a lot about investing in cannabis stocks lately, which ones are the ones to be looking at for investors how to be looking at the sector in the face of political inaction and promised action, various ways of thinking about investing in the sector.
Today we’re talking to Guy Rocourt, who cannabis aficionados may know as Papa & Barkley’s co-founder and Chief Product Officer since 2015. He became president and CEO at the beginning of February Papa & Barkley is famous for their bestselling lines relief gummies the sleep relief collection Papa Select solventless living extracts won the Emerald Cup every year since 2018.
Guy talks to us today about solventless products about the plant cannabis, about the sector, about the industry, about the community, about how we’re growing and also his new venture where he’s come on as product development formulator and founder of Christian Cannabis, which is pretty much what it sounds like.
They are starting to come out with high CBD low THC cannabis products, but also trying to dispel stigma around cannabis specifically from the religious Christian community. And Guy talks to us today about solventless products no chemicals, oil sun grown best in class type of stuff sustainably grown mitigating waste, how to best grow the plant, how to best market the plant, how to build a brand in the sector.
Guy has a tremendous amount of knowledge and insight about the cannabis sector and I was very excited to talk to him. I hope you are as excited to hear our conversation. Love to hear what everybody thinks about it. Please ask any questions that we can follow up love creating more discussion around some important points that were brought up and discussed today. Love to hear what all of you have to say about it.
Hey Guy, welcome to The Cannabis Investing Podcast. Welcome to Seeking Alpha. It’s great to have you on the show.
Guy Rocourt: Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
RS: It’s great to have you on you know, I’ve kind of stopped asking people what their background is and how they got to the cannabis industry. Because kind of the answers start blending together after a while. But you really do have a great, interesting, entertaining answer. So, I’d love to hear how you got to pop in Barclay, Christian Cannabis and the industry in general.
GR: Yeah, absolutely. It’s definitely been an interesting journey. I’m originally from New York City. Cannabis back in the 80s was obviously, we just started the whole war on drugs. So, I was definitely programmed deeply against all drugs, foreign and domestic. I then joined the military. And that’s how I helped pay for school, got to college. And while I thought I’d go back to the military, interestingly enough, given the times now, that is when the Soviet Union collapsed.
And after being taught that they were the great enemy and seeing that collapse, I was like, oh, maybe there’s not much career in the military. And so, I switched to filmmaking. And upon returning home to New York City, where I’m from, I got into the whole low budget film thing.
And again, I feel like I’ve always been very lucky place in time because it just so happened that right when I left film school, there was a big filmmaking revolution, low budget filmmaking revolution, that allowed candidly a person like myself a person of color to break into what used to be a very old person’s network of people like it’s very like, what do they call that nepotism? When family members pass on jobs, whether they’re grips electric cinematographer’s directors, and we definitely see that enacting families.
And in that I met Montel Williams talk show host also, I had just come out with a on the movie I actually worked with, worked with him on he came out with this MS. Of course, I was using cannabis recreationally. I started sharing it with him, had profound effects. We went on to have a 10-year relationship of advocacy. He helped me get my job here in California. And that was back now in the mid-90s.
And all of a sudden, we have proposition 215 here in California, and I’m seeing what’s happening. And of course, I’ve already done my military service. I felt like I’d pay my dues. So, I jumped at getting a script, even when all people were saying, oh, well, I don’t want to have my name on a list. I was like, I’m on every list already. I’m getting a script and I’m getting cannabis and so I became on tells care provider because back then knock-on wood.
I really had no issues and no real medical cause but I signed up as his caregiver and started to get really into this California cannabis program through advocacy. Poison, one point I started growing a little bit. And luckily, I always I say again, it was perfect timing around the web as we started to move from forums. What we really know is the internet and bulletin boards, that notion of web education was a real thing. And like, yeah, now I know how to like put a CD together, I could wire house, all kinds of electrical and environmental control things.
And I never thought I’d learn but I had to because, when you start to become a grower trying to provide safe access, you learn these things. So, all of a sudden, yours start to click by as I’m, you know, cultivating indoors, providing safe access around the city of Los Angeles. At one point, I realize maybe it’s a little too dangerous to be advocating. But I also know kind of this has become my day job because I did let go of my job at Paramount back in 2003, or four, when we were doing all the vertical integration, even I could see.
And you could appreciate this that two or three people owning all media sources was not even a thing we should be thinking about. But you had of course, at Paramount and Viacom Sumner Redstone was really on that just putting parcels together that we’re supposed to be opposed. VH one and MTV in the same house? Why? Like, why, why is everything being owned by one person? And so, I just got on my cannabis thing. And again, years come by, and it’s not until 2011 that I have at this point, I’m learning how to grow, I’m making all kinds of smaller other products, with my trims and whatnot.
And one of the things I learned to make is a vape pen early on, right, of course, I think most of us when we saw the e-cig were like, oh, let’s die should cannabis should be in that right. So sure enough, we endeavored we figured it out. And of course, in terms of providing safe access a lot easier to transport a smell a not so smelly vape pen compared to the flowers that were moving at the time.
And a lot of people forget so quickly that back then it was only flower. So, when people talk about medicinal or wellness, and then like all of it smoking is bad. It’s like yes, that is true. But what God is here is flower. I never forget that. And it always gives me an expanded view of wellness as it relates to cannabis, right. Cannabis, by definition is wellness, the place that we purchase it at is called the dispensary.
And so, in terms of the products I make, I’m always looking to make wellness products, even if it’s a smokeable. Right? And if it’s definitely an edible, why wouldn’t it be a wellness product, meaning like no high fructose corn syrup, no dyes, those kinds of things. But any case, I get a call from these first investors and they’re so hot to work with me. We just forgot we just failed on Proposition 19. Here in California. I was like California is a mess.
I don’t know what’s the infighting. It’s a big state. I didn’t understand all the political things. I just had my little bubble. I was like, I’m fine. Here. The way things are at this point. Like what do you know about Colorado? It’s like not much. So, they say they entreat me to go Colorado, I end up making a deal with them and creating one of the first class one div one lab in the city of Denver. We start making like hydrocarbon extracts and vape pens and it’s awesome.
And yeah, but it turns out those guys had no cannabis advocacy, right, they really didn’t want to push back early on in Denver, when the MVD were just acting like cops like before my scales got even check to see if they were accurately, I had cops coming in seeing if my guys had a badge, my girls had a badge like it was like, really like, that’s what’s important. Like you’re still pulling me over like you’re a cop.
And I’m some weed dealer as opposed to like looking out for public safety. And supply chain risk or like something important to the end consumer, right. So, they were not pushing back on any of that it kind of got a little disenchanted with their approach to cannabis because I had a much greener heart. And that’s when I met my partner, Adam Grossman, here at Papa and Barkley. And he had created this product for his dad, this older gentleman that like, use cannabis in his life and wasn’t didn’t have what I call cannabis shame.
So, I was like, oh this is interesting. Another big aha moment was he created this in his kitchen. And it occurred to me that we’re really got the movement here. His thing was grown in grandma’s kitchen and things made in grandma. I mean, things goes in grandma’s garden and things made in grandma’s kitchen. And I was like, ah, do you know Yeah, because it was prohibited. All I wanted was short path distillation machines, and all this great scientific equipment that had been held back from our industry for so long.
But at the end of the day, do I need that, most of us grew up on white bread and over refined sugar. And now in the zeitgeist, we move to less refined, more natural things. And correct me why does cannabis have to go through all that? Why not just start with all natural and so Papa & Barkley and hopefully all my future endeavors, we create everything solventlessly with no chemicals, and the only chemical we use in our entire lab is alcohol just to wipe instead of sterilize things down. On extracts or Dungeness with water heat and pressure, we make sure that all our other ingredients are also all natural or naturally derived to make a product that is on as clean and as awesome as it can be.
Not just because it testing because it’s the right thing to do. Like if you go into a dispensary do you really want some of these products that have chemical dyes, high fructose corn syrup, all these other things? You’re going there for a medicine a medicinal product, or even a wellness product? So shouldn’t we be taking some attention and make it as clean as possible. So that was a real big aha moment for me.
And so, all of a sudden, we started building it. And while in the first years of compliant cannabis here in California, people didn’t get it, and it was a huge educational lift, there’s been a huge race to the bottom that is very saddening where most products, especially on the CBD side, where we could have done the most help. We saw a race to the bottom where most of these products are distillate. And distillate is not plant based medicine, single source or active pharmaceutical ingredients are not plant based medicine.
And that seems that there’s not a place for that, then eventually, when we allow universities to study this, perhaps we’ll have a single source injectable that will shrink tumors, I don’t know sky’s the limit, I’m all about research. But for us for over-the-counter type medicines, shouldn’t it be as clean and as natural as possible, there’s just no reason to over refine cannabis. And part of the gift of abundance of compliance is not worrying that oh, my light hydrocarbon extraction rate is 20%, but my solvent list is five, we have plenty of cannabis, but these are scraping resin over. So, why not create these awesome quality products.
But I’ll pause there, that’s just all I’ve been doing. And of course, what brings us here today is my partner Craig Gross, who found in Christian Cannabis. And of course, when he brought this project to me not being a particularly religious person, I was like, ah, I don’t get it. But there was something of course, in the brand name. And when he said, hey, there’s a bunch of people that are just needing permission to get access to this product that is life changing. As you know, I was like, oh, that makes sense.
My mission has always been to unlock the power of the plant to improve people’s lives. You know, providing safe access is how I justified being somewhat of an outlaw for decades. And when presented in that fashion, I’m like, yes, you’re absolutely right. There’s a group of people that get their information through a certain vertical. And if I can access and talk to those thought leaders and show them that this plan, whether it’s for oncology patients, or whether it’s for patients who just need a little relaxation instead of one, let me start getting them that good education, let me start to demystify and take the demonization out of cannabis for them, so they can share them share that with their constituents. That makes sense.
RS: I’m interested like, on the personal side of your path before getting into the, cannabis specific part of your past? Do you feel like going from film to different parts of the cannabis industry, from activism to where you are now? Which is like, maybe taking a little bit of everything? Do you feel like you’ve done that? Do you feel like you pivoted? Do you feel like there’s a frustrated artist somewhere still inside you that wishes you could be like, going on the streets with a camera and doing something with that? Like, how do you kind of look at your path to where you are now?
GR: Yeah, I really thank you for that question. Um, yeah, you’re spot on. I have realized now that my true gift is the ability to articulate passionately, my feelings around cannabis and I am looking to move more to thought leadership while I love formulating, and I will always love formulating products. I think my next thing is to be more of a thought leader and I like the word artists there because what I realized now is when this industry started, for whatever reason, we came in with big corporate money and what I call alpha consumers, right? Seth Rogen, Jay Z, 2 Chainz, Snoop Dogg, those are alpha consumers.
Those are people that yes, they’ve consumed cannabis. They talk about their cannabis consumption. That’s great. What’s missing our true passionate artists inside myself, so even here at Papa & Barkley, we started to flip it around, where even a CEO my job is not to be the chief executive officer that makes all the decisions. I’m the coach that empowers my artists, right? I have an awesome artist and Lauren that is like top, she’s a female and the top hash maker.
And that’s and this the second person Jillian who is her predecessor, also award-winning hash making artists, I need to make sure that I have a great business apparatus that allows them to make the best hash in California and hopefully the nation.
Our chocolate tear Jonah Ginsburg, same thing. I’m here to empower him. And so now when we have core meetings, it’s not oh, data business, what the consumer does not know what they want in cannabis. So many marketing professionals come and say, well, you have to meet the consumer where they are. They don’t understand the smell and taste of cannabis. I’m like, okay, I hear you. It took me a while. But if I need to meet the consumer where they are, the only person qualified to do that is me, because we’re meeting where the odd, we’re going somewhere.
We’re what is that journey? Okay. And if we go back and we look at many examples, like let’s say for instance, alcohol prohibition, people come we come out of alcohol prohibition in the 40s and we’ve been drinking, milk and soda and it takes decades before our wine and beer palette are bad. Some people would say only now that we create decent wines and beers here. In the United States, right?
So, with cannabis, yes, it’s important to me that we let the consumer know that one, your palate is going to get there. You may not understand the taste of cannabis now, but it’s very the new ones just like wine. And you should be looking for those different strains and taste and varieties and appreciate those why bury those into like just a single source like it’s not THC cannabis is way more than THC or CBD. Those things are super important to me, you know?
RS: Do you feel like it’s something that we we’ve talked a bit about on the podcast, and something that I feel like, I like to talk about is this, do I guess the difference between the big business and cannabis that’s come up in the past few years? Certainly as an investing, a cannabis investing podcast we talk about, and to a lot of those big businesses, but also want to make sure the growing is being done in a right way, or we highlight all those things. And do you feel like there is artistry, there’s a place for the artistry and the focus on artistry and the focus on craft, like really, as the businesses get bigger?
GR: Well, I think so like my marketing folks. I had to learn to talk to the banking community. And one big word that investors love to hear is, oh, what kind of margin contribution you’re going to have? What’s the P&L look like? Well, what I’ve realized is, oh, everybody’s struggling for 50-60% margin. And then when I looked at artist sins, like in the alcohol or the fashion industry, I realized, oh, the way you get 1,000% margins is by being building kosher legacy and a story for consumers to buy in.
It’s not for all of us, I understand that Bud Light is the most popular selling beer, okay. However, that doesn’t mean they’re not higher tiers of beer. I understand that, like certain well, whiskies and plastic vodkas are what most folks might drink on, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no gray goose and that there’s not single malt scotch. Well, why would we leave that out of our industry, there’s two buck Chuck, and there are people we willing to pay 100 or $1,000, for a bottle that someone like myself isn’t who’s not a wine drinker can’t even discern the difference between the two.
So, we have plenty of experience of how like palate and culture and legacy can get rolled into this thing that creates 1,000% margins, or at least flagship brands that then cascade down. If you look at the automobile industry, you come out with a highline car like in the Tesla version of the Roadster that’s like super expensive and shows that you know what you’re doing. And then you have the model three, right? So, we need to make sure that there is economic levels for an access for all consumers with a certain base quality, I would hope that is cannabis.
However, when folks are wondering about well, is there really artistry? Is there something it’s like, I would say to you, there has to be? Luckily, I know there is and I believe, but from a business perspective, yes, we need to weave in and start to breed. Our notion of what cannabis is culture is when I look at wine, and I think about places like Napa and Sonoma County, it’s like we build up that area to have a certain appellation to a certain something and wines that come out of that now have an interesting value. They’re different than the ones in the Okanagan Valley, they’re different than the ones in Western New York.
Well, I want the same thing to happen in cannabis at a lady in Oklahoma say, hey, I want to bring your Papa Select product. It’s so awesome. But I don’t know if we have the right strings. I was like, the point of proper select is to honor the farm. If you grow fire in Oklahoma, and we turn it into awesome hash, I’m going to be proud to say if it came from Oklahoma, because that’s what made it special. Be the Same thing in wine, it’s like if you had awesome grapes in Oklahoma, and we made wine, whether Oklahoma was known for wine or not, though, that’s where those grapes were grown. And that’s how we evaluate those kinds of products.
I think cannabis has to be the same thing. I think that we already know there’s all kinds of strains, all kinds of nuances. And while not exactly like the wine community, there’s definitely enough there for us to start to like honor and create that legacy. And that’s where we get real margins. And yeah, cannabis artists right now like again, when I think about Lindsay Hurley who’s our confectionery director making gummies that yes, tastes like cannabis.
And the real question is, does it taste good, and most folks think for whatever reasons, those are mutually exclusive, and they’re not. We’ve created gummies that are only powered by the screen meaning the only thing in there besides the sugar and the tapioca to make the gummy structure is the rosin so all the flavoring all the color just comes from the extract. That is totally possible. But moreover, you can mix that with a little bit of hint of fruit and show that we can create new flavors that can only be created at the dispensary level.
If you want to strawberry gummy, go to Sugarfina, if you want a cannabis company that’s awesome and tastes great and also has great efficacy for whatever ails you. That’s the kind of product I’m trying to make. That is the artistry that is missing from some of the bigger companies. I appreciate the bigger companies thought they only needed to provide THC and CBD as that was what was prohibited. And that’s what they’ve been licensed for. But I think that we’re leaving, as bankers would put it some money on the table by not really starting to establish good, better best in our industry.
And I hope that happens today. Because right now all I see is not even the best in the form of too many display products and not really plant based medicines.
RS: Do you feel like it’s starting to change? And do you feel like the change is coming from a more informed consumer?
GR: Yeah, we were lucky to do a focus group with a company called SRG. And we got to sit in on some of these focus panels where they were showing like products and asking about their teach, their cannabis consumption. And one first of all people are guarded. We have been taught that this is like, even myself, after years of advocacy still have difficult smoking public speaking about it too openly or too loudly. You see cannabis professionals talking about cannabis dropping into a whisper, right? Cannabis shame is real. This is not like the tech sector. This is an emerging industry that has been here and been here and demonized for generations.
And we can’t just like think that this is going to go away. Because oh, surprise, surprise, it’s not even federally legal. So how can we even assume that cannabis shame has gone away? Right. And so, because of that, we have to work really hard to educate the consumer. But it’s like a hockey stick another good banking term, they are learning as we as you speak to them, and just normalize it. They’re letting their guard down. All of a sudden, people go from I never used to Canvas to well, you know, I might have tried it in high school.
This is literally in a focus group; they’re walking back their words and sharing more of their feelings around cannabis. So yes, I do think it’s getting better. And as it relates to plant medicine, and that natural concept, and that artistry, we’re talking about that, luckily, is already in the zeitgeist. Right? I see people going, and we’re, especially some of these younger generations are already looking under the hood, reading labels and understanding nutrition facts a little bit more.
And so, when I come out with a product, and I say, hey, my product is $1 more because I didn’t use high fructose corn syrup, or I didn’t or it’s Fairtrade chocolate, so that, it’s not coming from some conflict nation. Same thing with my MCT, or my coconut oil. Our consumers understand what I’m talking about when I say that I’m trying to have a carbon neutral footprint across the board from my buildings that my packaging may not be as slick. But that’s because I didn’t put in plasticizers or dyes that are toxic.
Consumers are ready to hear that. So, I’ve always felt the cannabis is part of a larger, greener movement. And so yeah, I do think that those things are going to land with the consumer. And I think the consumers already being educated down that green road that is Canvas, pun intended, I guess.
RS: Do you feel like are you I guess, encouraged? Have you been discouraged by the relationship between the people that you know, that have been a part of the industry before it was an industry quote, unquote? And do you feel like it’s changing? What are your thoughts about that?
GR: Well, look, we have a little bit of a problem. And I know, I want to be sensitive to your listeners. But there is a little bit of a reckoning coming back. And I do believe that, we need to push back on corporate cannabis. And I don’t want to be too hypocritical, because there’s a way business works in America, I need to raise capital to scale my business. Okay. And it’s no, I don’t know, I don’t want to get into the business of like, why capital is sequestered in a handful of folks in our nation. And there’s a certain community’s that get to dole out real capital if you want to scale a national brand.
And so, we have to engage with those folks, for sure. And yes, there is a little bit of disappointment, because, I think that there are many people now that are doing well in cannabis that really are not cannabis advocates, and that’s problematic. I think that there are folks that are still in jail for doing things that are folks are making a bunch of money now. Also, I think that a lot of folks looked at this as an opportunity.
And there are several states that when he names or anybody under the bus now, where the only reason that folks are doing well is because they were able to get to those state offices and work the licensing programs so that a privileged few that had the financial wherewithal, got licensing and then provided garbage to their state.
Candidly, there are states that have medicinal programs, and even some who’ve got some burgeoning adult use programs where their providers have the industry unlock as the only licensed individuals and they are they have no desire to come up with good brands, good products, even art, they just had no real push to create awesome cannabis or progress the industry.
That’s what needs to be solved, right. So, in the states where licensing was about who you know money or being a previous business owner and not a cannabis advocate or not having any cannabis experience. I think that leads you to distillery products. I think that leads you to unreasonable potency requirements. Because you know, we think about potency. We don’t think about how we learned to drink alcohol, we just do as adults, but most of us in high school had, and in college had some storied history of how we understood our relationship with being able to take a drink.
But yet we have people in their 30s and 40s that think that they’re just going to use cannabis and all of a sudden know how to know it’s like, you have to pay into it a little bit. And surprise, surprise, your tolerance also gets to a certain level. So, when the industry says five milligrams is an average edible that should be heard. But yet you have places that are still pushing back and saying, no, you have to micro dose this, and it should only be one milligram, and that’s too much. It’s like, the science is out there. And for too long in cannabis and in the war on drugs.
We’ve just turned a blind eye to science. That needs to change. But you can see the big companies that are already running afoul of the Fed in general, get into cannabis and try to do it as squeaky clean as possible. But that doesn’t really honor what we’ve done here. We’re still very much in a fight. This is still federally prohibited. And so, I would say to people, if you’re getting into cannabis, the first hat you need to put on is advocacy, then you can put on your banker hat, because if you put on your banker hat first, you’re not going to create quality. You’re not going to create quality cannabis.
RS: How would you advise investors, consumers? Podcast hosts, like how do we push? You know big business more? How do we push them more to the like their feet to the fire? How do we kind of call them out a little bit more in a real way that affects change?
GR: Yeah, I think it’s, without ruffling feathers, we just say, hey, isn’t it possible that all of us were indoctrinated with a little cannabis shame? And perhaps if you just take a deep breath and say, how deeply in my allowing my previous experiences to influence how I’m judging this plant now, I think that’s really all it takes.
Because I think if you can be honest and say, Wait, I’ve been programmed to feel a certain way about this plant that if I don’t do you work, to think about that, and think that through, I’m not seeing things objectively, I think most educated folks know that we can have biases, and unless we decide to look at them and work on them, they’re just not going to go away, it’s going to influence our lives.
And some of them, okay, they’re the norm. Right? Here, we’re trying to make a change, right. It’s not different than systemic racism, systemic misogyny, we have a lot of systemic things in our nation, that the only way we can clear them up is by giving voice to the problem. And of course, as you know, across the board, we have a habit of not giving voice, there’s this, there’s like a fear that if we give voice to it, it makes it real, but it is real, it needs to go away. And cannabis was prohibited. And we did put people in jail. And we did demonize it.
And even now in Texas, you get pop with a joint, especially if you look like me. Who knows what could happen? That’s today, right? So, I would advise them to look at yourself first and foremost, and say, why are you doing this? It’s fine to be money motivated. Now, we’re Americans that suppose that’s part of our mandate, right?
However, what else is motivating you? And what are you trying to get to? If you really want to just make money, then I would say to you, you want to create sustainable products that people need so that they have a stickiness and not just great selling, but great sell through? Right? That means you have to have a product that works has efficacy and a reason for being.
If you can answer those questions for yourself about cannabis, well, you probably shouldn’t be in the business, it’s not just an opportunity to sell what was an illicit drug, it’s not just an opportunity to take advantage of people that you think are less than and drug addicts, right? Because if you think that way, you’re going to create low quality products that are not sticky. And hopefully eventually we’ll be taken over by those who do create those high-quality products, right.
So, the first thing we need to do is get out of our own way and realize I’ve been programmed to think negatively about cannabis. How do I clear that up? And what is my point in entering the cannabis industry? Money Making is the baseline that’s too simple. We need to be more complicated than that if we want to be successful.
RS: Yeah, amen. Do you feel like that’s something or the main thing or one of the things that you’ve learned heading up Papa & Barkley, like as a brand in this industry, do you feel like it’s, well I guess a you know, believing in the product that you’re selling and it being something that you would take yourself and then kind of just out there telling an authentic story is that how you would put it or how How’d you look at kind of, achieving some sort of place in the marketplace as a brand?
GR: Yeah, I think it’s telling an authentic story. I think it’s being unapologetic about cannabis use and the efficacy of cannabis products. And without sometimes I get over my skis, but without being too passionate because I can be like shut people down. Just kind of lay out the facts for them. It’s like folks will be like, oh, well, cannabis is a gateway drug. Once you get that, is it? What about alcohol? What about tobacco more addictive? Right? More chance of death? Oh, well okay, well, you need to keep it away from kids and make sure that like kids don’t have access to it, really.
Alcohol doesn’t come in childproof containers, and that’ll kill you. You didn’t think about your house, you just left your adolescent at home for whatever reasons. They get into your gummies you’re going to come home and they’re going to be passed out. They get into your handle of Jack Daniels; you might have a case of alcohol poisoning. That’s those are just facts. That’s not I’m not making that up. And so, I think that when we look again, at what the real science around cannabis is, we started to think, oh, why has this been prohibited? Oncology patients are the best.
When you unfortunately are diagnosed with cancer and you’re prescribed a regime of chemo, two things are usually happened. A painkiller is going to be prescribed and an anti-depressant is going to be described prescribed. Most folks don’t know that when you have chronic pain, there’s usually also a component of depression, like it just you just get tired and angry that you’re in chronic pain. So, usually two things are prescribed. Well, here’s the problem.
Typically, our pain management opioids don’t provide any nausea sensation, and in fact, eventually make us constipated and stop healthy bodily function. The antidepressants that were put on typically have a hard path on how we step back from them. We’re not supposed to be on them from before, but we definitely can’t just stop taking the pills.
Once we start going down that road. Enter cannabis may be not as strong as either of the pharma components, but will in one THC, simple tincture mine or any tincture you get out there on the market will promote pain management, anti-nausea, increased appetite, and definitely a form of a source of you for you to kind of take your mind off what’s actually happening.
All those things ladder up to great healthy bodily function, while still achieving an anti-depressive quality and pain management. Why would we not start with a nontoxic THC tincture before jumping to the farmer? For me, it’s like the minute somebody says, hey, somebody got diagnosed with cancer, I’m sending him CBD rich, or at the very least directing them to our website with a discount code, right? It’s like we already have this product right here ready for you? Right? Why would we not just be prescribing that first, doctors will say, oh, I don’t understand the dosing, plant-based medicine is inconsistent a 40% side effect on most pharmaceuticals, that’s inconsistent.
I don’t want to hear that plant-based medicine is inconsistent. It’s like you can’t just manipulate numbers and stats and make it seem like you’re on the right side of this, right. Like, I appreciate the cannabis is not a cure all. But what we do know is that it’s relatively nontoxic, and non-physically addictive. All things can be mentally addictive. That’s been my new things like oh, no, you sure? It’s like, look, I as a former cigarette smoker, I was able to quit nicotine. But you know, what I never actually quit is your own fixation of smoking. It’s awesome.
Smoking is an interesting feeling that has been around with us for a long time. Nicotine is a horrible drug and super addictive, right? But there are two components to that addictive quality, right. And so, when you think about cannabis, yeah, using cannabis as a regular part of your life can be kind of a routine. But to say it’s physically addictive, like certain other drugs, that’s crazy. It’s not, it’s not even in the same category. So, we just need to be honest about that. We need to be honest about its low toxicity and the zero incident of death.
There are not many other analgesics that can see that. And yet we step over it constantly. It’s very frustrating. So, I try to be calm when I just lay out. There’s just too many simple truths that are hard to disarm, that when you lay them on people, you either get the cognitive dissonance which is a big concern for me in the nation.
Now there are a lot of folks that just are deciding to not hear truth, no matter what there is that but for most folks, I think when you just lay it out and you just try to meet them where they are you try to disarm them. They get it, a topical product is what we call the first cannabis conversation because usually an older person, no matter how like stuck on anti-cannabis they are if you get to rub this on their body and they realize, wow, that work. It has no psychoactive effects.
Then you can say, look, this was a plant that I plucked from the ground, I soaked it in the coconut oil, and then I rubbed it on your body and you got efficacy. How is that not magic. And so, when I think about Christian Cannabis, that’s exactly going to be our approach. It’s like, here is a natural plant from the ground. And I’m not going to use anything else, but these hands that God gave me to make you a product that is going to give you direct relief. How can we really argue with that?
RS: So, is that kind of your feeling? Going from Papa & Barkley to Christian Cannabis? Was it? Were you attracted by that kind of dispelling of old notions and especially around kind of like, conservative religious, a lot of times that goes hand in hand with not being open to cannabis or the plant-based notion of what it can do for you. Was that the appeal?
GR: Yeah, exactly. So, kind of like you were talking, I think, either before the interview in the beginning, you asked about, like, my personal path and journey. Yeah, this Papa & Barkley is the cornerstone that I believe in cannabis. And as I start to look at endeavors like Christian Cannabis, and more thought leadership, I realized my passion, and my mission now is to crack open, that notion that somehow cannabis, or drugs in general have a morality component, and that somehow there’s even fall into the notion of conservative V Liberal, that is not accurate.
Okay, that is a remnant and a mistake. Again, we’re talking about mistakes and having to look at them square in the face. Back in the 80s, I have nothing against Reaganomics, or whatever that’s a whole separate story. But this notion of just saying no, was wrong, if you’re on if you’re a parent, but parents out there will understand that you don’t tell kids No. So why do you think we could say that to grown adults, the only way you change a human being’s behavior is with education, and buy in and understanding. So, it should have been just educate. That would have been a better program. But we went with just say, no, that is so puritanical, and weird.
And it’s not work. It has never worked. When will we learn the lesson that prohibition does not work? Patients’ education, which are the fundamentals of love? Yes, I am asking us to care for one another and do more than just a simple black and white of No, it’s just not enough. It’s not it has not served us, right. So, Nancy Reagan may have had the right idea of trying to save the children. But the approach was not deep enough. It shouldn’t just say no is too easy. Education takes a long time; people can be resistant to it. People don’t get educated the same way they don’t get communicated to the same way.
So, we have to have a multifaceted approach of how we get real education to people. And now that we have to undo decades of misinformation, it’s even more difficult. Right? And so yeah, for me, cracking open a like a crucible of people that have just like kind of layered on misinformation, and put cannabis such at a distance and so demonized it.
Yeah, that is the ultimate, if I think it’s funny, I was talking to you, gentlemen about Caterham. And he’s like, well, there’s not a lot of Christians in California. It’s like really like a niche. And I’m like, I’m leaving, and I’m putting my shoes on as I’m leaving this place. And I’m like, wait a minute. We’re the niche. When we’re the niche, everybody else.
I mean, think about right now, even in a nation that is supposed to have separation of church and state, somehow again, in the 50s, we end up putting God back on the dollar, and God rules our house, whether we like it or not, our paws have caught we are a Christian nation. That’s, it’s some of it is problematic.
We see that playing out now, right. So, to be able to just bring almost the teachings of Jesus back of acceptance in a real way is yeah, I that appealed to me. Right, I realized that for me, I could always preach to those who are hearing me preaching to the choir is easy, but going out and truly bringing my passion to folks who have been denied it for all the wrong reasons.
Yeah, that is my new future challenge, right. And Christian Cannabis is definitely a start. And yeah, I in April, I’ll be at the MDC at the National Cannabis Festival and hope to see if there’s some politicians there that we can influence coming here in California later there’s going to be the state of America’s Summit. Hopefully a state of Kansas is going to have a parallel track and maybe we can get I got we’ll get Joe Biden but maybe we can get Governor Newsom to come But yeah, we need to start to get out there and influence and show that cannabis needs to be accepted.
But we need to get to those thought leaders who people look at as if they are God. Like God didn’t say cannabis is bad, Billy Graham did. And I need Billy this case to walk that back. I mean, candidly, that’s what this is about. Please walk back some of the things you said and have felt for generations, I need all our congressional constituents to just be like, maybe we made a mistake. Now, I know that’s a high bar, because there’s even bigger mistakes in cannabis that have yet to be acknowledged.
And we see that being so problematic. But I have to shout out Gary Chambers. I don’t know if you know who he is, but he’s running for Senate in Louisiana. It’s like, it’s a hard-nosed approach. But sometimes it’s like, yeah, this is what we’ve come to. Right. We become so polarized, if you don’t mean, just aggressive in your face statements. You are not getting hurt, right. But yeah, candidly, do I want all my politician’s smoking cannabis and not alcohol? 100%, I’ll call leads to argument than war cannabis does not. I’ll die on that hill.
RS: I think also do I know Gary Chambers is, yeah because, he went out there and he made himself known. And it’s like, I think that people that are brave enough to start a conversation that’s seeped, in fact, and optics or personality or personal baggage, but really seeped in something real that you have on your side. I feel like you may be knocked down at the beginning, but I think you’re going to convince a lot more people for the next person that comes up, and says what they have to say, and that’s just, I guess I would have done because that’s what we keep seeing, it’s like, some people have to be like, in your face and knock some people over.
And then for the next people, it’s like, you’ve affected all those people that have been knocked down, and it’s like, a much wider swath of people. Um, I’m curious, you’ve mentioned this, and it’s something that I’m also like, think about and talk about the notion of smoking, as opposed to like, more healthy options like balms or oils. Is that, do you feel like, that’s part of some people’s approach, and it may not be the healthiest, but it’s part of it? And is that kind of, like part of the dispelling of if you if you’re inhaling something, you’re automatically like, demonized?
GR: Yeah, no, it’s that one has been quite difficult because smoking, so, I tend to have that expanded view of wellness because people like, ah, it’s not like — then like, you know, you get the haters and they want to latch on, you give me the latch on to you, they will. So, this notion of smoking, being healthy, or being medicinal is often something that folks latch on to, and it’s hard to, to push back against that because smoking carcinogens is not the best. However, for some patients, that instant efficacy of being able to titrate through the lungs is quite specific, okay.
And we’ve seen if we didn’t have such tremendous evidence of folks having literally shakes whether it’s Parkinson’s, or epileptic seizures, literally getting a breath of cannabis and then being able to speak coherently. We there, that’s the only thing you can do is show somebody how the smoke of cannabis can literally stop somebody from a seizure or shaking. That being said, we are always looking for better ways to take cannabis, right.
So, in the form of folks having a seizure it is true that good strong tinctures, some of the new nano emotions can be put sublingually and start to absorb into the bloodstream fairly quickly. Again, smoking is pretty instantaneous. Of course, one of the things that we’ve been blessed with recently is this notion of high temperature vaporization or low temperature vaporization depending on what your temperature scale is.
But this notion of concentrates which most people are like, oh concentrate cannabis, it’s so potent. Yeah. But if I said to you, it’s aroma therapy, you use this essential oil, you warm it, you don’t burn it, it produces these vapors. You breathed those vapors in and they have tremendous efficacy. That’s a whole different it’s again, it’s how we think about it. If we want to say what the young kids say in college dabs, of course, that sounds like drug culture and we’re just not going to ever be able to sell that, but if we say hey, this is aromatherapy, I’m warming essential oils for you to breathe that in. Yeah, and it’s interesting.
We have a consumption lounge one of the first in the state and edibles have too long of an onset time and that includes the drinks right so yes, yes have investors and the drink market seems hot. I’m just going to throw it out there. I don’t believe that’s sustainable. We already drink something at bars, right? Cannabis is not alcohol. It’s not the same thing. It’s not the same kind of buzz. One of the companies I won’t name them but their tagline is same buzz different no hangover. I’m like, same buzz, really? It’s just not my why can’t we have something new and different? I’m not giving up alcohol. I’m just saying why can we have something new and different.
That being said, edibles drinks, all those things have too long of an onset time for a social engagement, right? Smoking, okay, we know what sessions are like, but maybe that’s unhealthy enter low temperature vaporization this notion of taking concentrates that have all that legacy and culture that the flower has because we can have terpenes, we have multiple ways of doing it from using a chemical extract to make all kinds of different diamonds and sauces to using solvent list to create ice water hashes and rosins, right. So, you whether you want to clear like a single malt, or whether you want it like Turkey and fruity and flavorful, like you would grape soda or fortified wine or something like that.
Those things are available, but at the end of the day, you’re not combusting them, right. So, you’re not creating smoke, you are not inhaling smoke, but you are inhaling all the beneficials, the terpenes and the cannabinoids. So, I do think that as far as social imbibing goes that vaporization will go a long way. And I’m not just talking about vape pens, vape pens to me, or like the beer can of vaporization there are only going to be so good. You have this oil that’s trapped and reused and reused and degrades every time.
It’s you’re giving up flavor and quality for the convenience of the vape pen very much like a can of beer. But when you think about just raw concentrates and using an appropriate device for your aromatherapy. Now you can get into high quality and here in California there are folks who spend $80-90 a gram on awesome concentrates, right? So, it is hard to push back on flour and smoking flour, being healthy.
However, it is the medicine that got here. There are people in jail for all the right reasons for pushing flour and flour advocacy before we had the tools to even make concentrates, even the tools to make basic artesian O’Keeffe’s and hashes of years ago, we were selling flour that was the commodity. That’s what got the industry here. That is the nontoxic medicine that we all know and love. However, as we evolve, yeah, if we could do less smoking of green matter and carcinogens, that would be great. I will add one last caveat though.
While smoking chlorophyll and plant matter is not the best in your tinctures. And in your edibles. Make sure you look for as much of that, right. So, while we don’t want to inhale combusted cannabis in our topicals and in our tinctures if we can get some of that chlorophyll, if we can get some of those phytonutrients those plant fats, those other essentials.
That is how the magic of the plant works in all formulations that I’ve won awards with, and the sticky products that folks crave that call me like, oh, I have to find that usually have what I call whole plant efficacy, meaning it’s not just THC, it’s not just CBD, but I’m purposely looking to get chlorophyll get greenness in it. And I remember when I created the first bond folks are like, oh, it’s green and smells like weed.
I was like, yeah, and if you leave it in the sun, that green is going to go away. So, keep it in a cool dark place. Because that living chlorophyll is what’s helping those cannabinoids migrate through your dermis and give you real efficacy. In the tinctures, oh, it tastes so weedy and earthy.
Yeah, well, that green herbaceous chlorophyll and plant fats are also what’s working synergistically to buffer liver toxicity because in the only FDA approved drug CBD, Epidiolex, which is great. And I’m glad that there is an FDA approved CBD drug. For those folks who have epilepsy, they’re already seeing liver toxicity issues because they have to use four and five times more amount of the CBD distillate than they do the whole plant. And the whole plant has all these other things that buffer the active. It’s like you can eat as much willow bark as you want. But too much aspirin is going to kill you.
Same thing, plant medicine is what we know. I want folks to research and progress, better pharma from cannabis that has to happen. But universities, even here in my backyard, I’m in humbled Humboldt State University in weed country, we can’t even partner with them because you’re so afraid of losing their federal funding, right.
So, when the Feds finally allow universities to really dig into this cannabis can evolve from plant-based medicine. But I would caution all of us now as a nascent emerging industry that we just stick to plant-based medicine, because that’s what God is here. And so yeah, that’s I would then say, if you think that you’re in a CBD only business selling distillate, it’s not sustainable and not good.
If you think that you are just getting away with selling Delta eight. That’s right, you’re getting away with it. Because it’s not right. It’s not a natural compound. It’s a synthetic, we have no years of research on it. And if that blows up, if something goes wrong with Delta 10, Delta 8, right, or some of these CBD distillates that they’re trying to convert into, like hemp derived delta 9, all this stuff that we’re allowing to be sold out on the unregulated CBD market when something goes wrong, this entire industry is going to pay.
So, a lot of times with THC with these CBD businesses, I get on these, you go to these conferences and I push back and I’m like, you can’t just think of yourself as CBD only, right. CBD has been part of cannabis since day one just because it got artificially separated out. You’re a carpetbagger, if you just grab onto that and try to make some money and not look holistically at what the entire cannabis business is. And now the biggest threat to us is this unregulated CBD Delta 8 and Delta 10 movement because they’re unregulated. And at one point, something will blow up and it’ll be all cannabis will be blamed. So, I’m very concerned about that particular sector as well.
RS: Do they have anything to say in response when you push back on that?
GR: Well, it depends on who it is. Some folks, there are a lot of folks who have gotten a CBD because they got misinformation, and just thought that somehow that was the most medicinal part of the plan. And that, THC wasn’t needed. And their a ha moment was like, oh my God, you can read CBD rich plants.
So why were we reading THC in the first place? Okay, they’re, at least they’re hearing it and they understand plant-based medicine and we can work with that. There are others who are in it for the money and are just like, nope, that’s how things go. We take plants and we make stuff and being natural is unrealistic. I have heard that before the being all natural is unrealistic in today’s society. I’m like, I can’t I can’t sign off on that.
RS: Being all natural is unnatural.
GR: Yeah.
RS: Okay, Guy as we wind down, you want to share with listeners kind of what your plans are with Christian Cannabis. What you’re hoping for in this year with it?
GR: Yeah, absolutely. So, right now Papa & Barkley is a pillar of California cannabis. And hopefully, we’re going to start to see some breaks here in California, some breaks here in the Fed, so that we can start to bring this brand out nationally. And in the meantime, yes, Christian Cannabis is this awesome concept that we are looking to raise some financial capital to get it to the masses, because candidly, we are the niche, cannabis is a niche.
Even in the billions that we’ve made here in California and the 10s of billions that we’ve made nationally, with just a few states and federal prohibition and 280 E. We all know that there’s something financially here. But I think that it is not going to really become what it could be until the no pun intended Moral Majority gets right with cannabis.
So, I feel that I’ve been presented an opportunity in Christian Cannabis to crack open, not just the Christian Cannabis fan, but the entire industry, right? Because if we can get the majority, not us the niche to just say, hey, using cannabis is not an affront to God.
I think all of a sudden, a lot of things will change. I think that right now, there are many people who have been able to turn a deaf ear because they literally just think that, well, this is like a sin. It’s just bad. You’re just a druggie, and that’s got to change, right. And so that is my main plan is to work, even as we’re fundraising, I’m more interested in going with Craig, and talking to the different pastors, so they can start to disarm their constituents, right.
I don’t doubt that this project is going to take off. But I and I think Craig is the same way. We want to do this the right way. It’s not unlike Papa & Barkley, you can raise money from Wall Street. But you have to have the guts and the vision earlier, we talked about artistry, you have to have the guts and the vision to tell your investors, no, this is the right way, okay. And that is what we need to do with Christian Cannabis, there’s going to be a lot of folks that are going to want to put the money in to manipulate the flock. I have no desire to manipulate the flock, I have a desire to educate them as a formulator.
I’ve always said I want to create products as close to scientifically accurate or scientific efficacy as possible. So, the more educated you get, the more you’re going to gravitate to my product. I want to do the same thing with Christian Cannabis. The more educated you get, the more you’re going to want to take the product, not the other way around. This is not about misinformation.
This is about 100% standing in the light of truth. And I don’t say that and I live in a religious way. I think it’ll I think it’ll resonate with those folks. But let let’s all just truly take a minute and stand in the light of truth. And yeah, I think we will all then find cannabis, right. I find this.
RS: It’s like the companies that were going around to the doctors, and saying, this is how you prescribe this is what an endocannabinoid system that and just like educating and it’s just a different kind of a dealer in different medicines.
GR: And yeah, I think the hard part there when you think about that, because I am sympathetic to doctors, we think, we said the word earlier systemic, we live in a very litigious society. And until cannabis is fully demonized, undemonized, I don’t know the stigma is taken away. And insurers realize that this is not going to be the thing that causes a huge uptick in car, in motor vehicle accidents, in domestic violence and all the things that were insured for.
That’s what has to happen, right? Drug interactivity, and intermixing. All this we have tons of anecdotal evidence, right. But real studies need to be undertaken so that doctors can feel comfortable prescribing it without worrying about a malpractice suit, right? That is just a systemic thing that we’ve created in our society where we fear the truth. Because if it’s not fully insurable, it’s not the truth, right? Because if there’s even a hole in it, somebody will figure out how to bring a suit. And in our world, it’s like, the minute you’re being sued. It’s like an assault, like you have to defend yourself.
And now that’s money out the door. And people are very, very reluctant to do anything, no matter how much they believe you have to be a fighter. That’s why I respect everybody in the cannabis industry, because we are fighters. I’m at risk, all cannabis companies could be sued right now, right?
Luckily, I think there’s just not a body of evidence for any class action suit. But there are folks out there that are probably scheming to figure out how they can bring a claim against a gummy company for something that happened to a kid. That’s the world we live in, right. So, the first thing is to educate and make so clear that it’s unreasonable to demonize cannabis the way we have, I just don’t know how long that’s going to take.
That’s my fear, it’s like, is this my lifetime? Will I be fighting this mission? To my days end and so only that my kids might see a world where we’ve forgotten the mistakes of how demonized cannabis was?
And that, like, you know, just because somebody smoked a joint and got into a car accident, does it mean that we need to raise everybody’s insurance rates by 300%? Or outlaw it? I don’t yeah, I don’t I I’m a little bit scared that it’s going to take as long to deprogram folks as it did to program though, right. But somebody’s got to do the fight. And I’m excited to be one of those people.
RS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s I think it’s no small job for sure. Can I do you have time for one more question?
GR: Yeah, of course.
RS: I was just going to ask you, you mentioned about taking Papa & Barkley national, do you feel like California brands have a leg up? Speaking to that kind of like, the wine, the same notions of the wine country up there?
GR: Yeah, no, I think so. And I think in November at MJBiz, it was very clear. No disrespect to all the large MSOs. But I think that the whole concept of MSOs usually they’re not in California. Why? Because they found themselves in situations where their business model was based on privilege license.
Here in California, the word that was used in Vegas was it’s a branding knife fight. And it is, and it has been, this is not my first brand in California, it’s not my 10th. Even in the traditional market, we were putting like color printed stickers and trying to identify whether it was our cannabis, and then we’re like, oh, shoot, we can’t identify, be traced back to us, right.
But we have been here in California, more deployed in our traditional marketing in our 215 medical programs than most states could even hope to be, right. And so, we do have a lot of brands, we do have a lot of culture and we also have a lot of cannabis knowledge. And so, the way we make products is super important.
We also have the Pacific Northwest, where I’m at where we do a lot of Sungrown, and we didn’t really touch on it in the interview. But like, there’s a reason why we don’t grow grapes indoors. Right? And there’s a reason why we grew cannabis indoors. And that’s because of prohibition. But now, especially in the face of climate change. Again, this is part of one green movement.
Is it really appropriate for the 100,000 square foot superheroes in Nevada and Arizona, where they’re using electricity to run lights and then more electricity to have AC’s to cool their lights all the time? It’s 120 degrees outside. Is that the best use of our hydroelectric power here in the southwest? I just don’t think so, right? It just doesn’t seem right.
Never mind that Sungrown also has some magical qualities that I think we’re starting to quantify. But somebody is going to say, well, I can’t grow Sungrown in Nevada. Well, I have plenty. I’m overgrown in Oregon. Let me ship you that interstate? Oh, well, we can’t do interesting until the Feds do something. And then why would the stakeholders in Canada, Nevada, Arizona and other states that have started their programs want to give up their infrastructure that they haven’t returned on their investment, right?
So, if I have a million square feet of canopy indoors in Canada, do I really want this whole scheme to go away and have the Pacific Northwest shipping awesome, cheap Sungrown even for value added inputs? Even if it was even if you said to me smokeable flour has to be endorsed?
Well, I’d be like, alright, well, when it comes to cannabis extracted oils, shouldn’t we at least grow that Sungrown and make it just more easy and more intuitive? You’re right, but most states can grow indoors it can grow outdoors, not at scale. And so, they’ve got these huge indoor schemes. It’s based on where we come from, and all that needs to be done. So even as we’re making steps forward, we’re also making backward steps, right? And that that all needs to get cleared up.
And that’s just again, about education. It’s about really getting to the next level; the Feds need to deschedule this cannabis thing, it’s like, please let us have proper safe banking, proper access to debt financing. Let us start interstate commerce so that we can start to establish real Appalachians and grow cannabis where cannabis should be grown. Manufacture cannabis where they are manufacturing centers, right. And share it like have centralized distribute centralized processing, multistate distribution, just like all these other commodities, there’s just no reason not to do that other than cannabis shame, right.
And yeah, that’s the fight like constantly pushing and saying we can do better, we have to do better. And it’s not just about allowing folks to use cannabis. It’s about how cannabis is going to be disruptive as a green movement to everything else we’re doing right most cannabis advocates are not just looking for cannabis, you’re looking for large sweeping changes, that you are disruptive to powerful businesses hemp as a product. As an agricultural byproduct should start to usurp, cotton production and other fiber production.
Hemp seed oil should start to offset corn ethanol as a concept. Again, the numbers are there just to establish on the medicinal side, biodiesel and biodiesel production from hemp seed oil, outstrips corn oil or soil soar corn and soy oil by exponential factors. We just never did it right using hemp even partially to offset calm production even though now it’s great that we have closed loop cotton making machines and we’re not dumping chemicals every time we refine cotton.
Hemp can be made with almost no machinery in an in an artificial fashion. So why are we not looking at that I’m a big fan of student of Jack Hara, selling cannabis medicinal selling weed as it were, that’s the easy part. It is that’s not unlocking the power of the plant to improve people’s lives. One, one factor one factor is this medicinal thing, this notion of selling cannabis for consumption. The other the other pillars are food, shelter, clothing, right? Those are things that Jack told us back in the 70s. This we are in a second, some people say third cannabis revolution, we’ve been trying to get this plan to the forefront for so long.
But not just for smoking weed for all these other things that will help us be just a greener society and why we are so resistant to it money, mostly stakeholders that are so entrenched, whether they are cotton producers, corn producers, soy producers, paper producers, all of them need to retool their infrastructure to allow him to help their industry. It’s kind of a leap of faith, but they need to do it because everything else we’re doing is not sustainable. We also know this.
So, I hope that in the immediate future, folks start to realize that we this gift of cannabis, this gift of the hemp bill that we got in 2018 has almost nothing to do with this commodity we call wheat. It has everything to do with this hemp plant that can save the world, as John told us now going on seven, 50-60 years ago.
RS: Yeah, I mean, what you said before about how long this is going to take and it scares you to think about I mean, man, all these things it’s like, it’s scary to think about how long it’s going to take and how important it is and how the solutions are there if only we would enable ourselves to make use of them but here we are. But man, the fight is in the fight and kudos to you for getting out there and trying to dispel the shame and I hope everybody listening is doing their part goes out to do their part and speaks about their cannabis use proudly or at least what they know to be useful productive solutions from cannabis.
Guy, this was a really interesting conversation. I feel like as a human, as a citizen of the world, as an investor, so I really appreciate it. Those are always my favorite kinds of conversation. So, thanks for taking the time and, and really getting into the conversation.
GR: Yeah, thank you, for the listeners, if you’re an investor, and a professional and you use cannabis, say something, let’s not be in a closet anymore. It is possible to be successful, to be affluent, to be creative, and still use cannabis and the more people that you share your success with and your cannabis use, the more normalized this is going to be.
There’s a lot of successful people that just keep their cannabis use in the closet. And we need those folks to get out and share that example.
RS: Absolutely, amen. Shout it from the rooftops. Appreciate it, Guy, really appreciate it.
GR: Thank you. I appreciate you.
Thanks so much for listening to The Cannabis Investing Podcast, subscribe or follow us on Seeking Alpha, Libsyn, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher and we’d really appreciate it if you left us a review on Apple podcasts. It helps other investors find our show and makes us feel fantastic. If you have feedback or questions. We’d love to hear from you at rena+canpod@seekingalpha.com. Nothing on this podcast should be taken as investment advice of any sort. I am long Trulieve, Khiron, IsraCann Biosciences, The Parent Company AYR Wellness, and the ETF MSOS. Subscribe to us on Libsyn, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Thanks so much for listening and see you next time.
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